FRACTURES. 4s. 
a kick on the upper third of the internal face of the forearm; he was,. 
against our advice, taken home after twenty-two days. He had scarcely~ 
_ passed the door of the hospital, when, smelling a mare, he reared and felb. 
on the lame leg; a crack was héard, the radius was broken at the place~. 
of the first injury. The horse recorded by Vitry had, six months before, 
received a shot on the right anterior cannon, the fracture taking place while 
walking ; the lameness of the first injury had disappeared five months.. 
_ before. 
Absolute rest constitutes the primordial indication of the treatment of ~ 
incomplete fractures. The patient should be kept in the stable, tied up- 
to prevent his lying down, or better, put in slings. It seems to us that 
Liard ‘and Relier have exaggerated the inconvenience of the latter. Truly, . 
some horses object to slings, but in the majority of cases, when they are - 
well applied, that the animal is not raised from the ground, he can rest com- 
fortably, specially if with them he has a good bed on the floor. If the . 
other legs swell, cold lotions, massage, bandages should be applied on them. 
On the seat of the trauma, cold water and astringent lotions are recom- 
mended. Application of a large blister is preferable. In large animals, 
bandages are little used. After six weeks or two months, the animal is 
returned to work, light at first. With time, the exostosis which has devel- 
oped subsides gradually; alteratives and needle firing will promote its . 
resolution. In small animals,. a diagnosticated split should be treated as . 
a complete fracture. 
B.—CompLeTE FRACTURES. 
Most commonly the result of external violence (traumatism, blows, falls, . 
projectiles) or of muscular contraction, complete fractures, in all species, 
are peculiarly frequent on bones of the extremities. They ‘are favored | 
by local and general causes. Local inflammatory processes (osteitis, 
necrosis, caries), in reducing the resistance of bones, predispose to secondary 
fractures, which occur easily under the action of some occasional cause. 
The situation of some bones (radius, tibia, metacarpals, first phalanx).. 
exposes them most particularly to traumatisms. Some general morbid 
conditions (osteoclasty, osteoporosis) modify the constitution of the bony 
tissue and reduce its resistance. Ordinarily, the lesions due to these - 
morbid states are apparent in examining the fractured bone; there are- 
cases where they escape the simple naked eye inspection. Advanced... 
age is also accompanied with rarefaction of the bony tissue. In some. 
families of animals, a special fragility of bones has been observed and with. 
it numerous fractures on one subject, without discovering at the post- 
mortem any manifest alteration of the bony tissue (Stockfleth, Dieckerhoff)... 
The relative frequency of fractures of the various bones of legs differs:: 
